Two-third of the Bangladeshi hypertensive patients does not take regular medicine and are at high risk of developing the fatal diseases, experts said at a city seminar on Thursday.

Some of the seminar speakers referred to the Bangladesh Health and Demographic Survey 2011 report to note that one third of the adults of the age group of 35-80 years have hypertension but half of them are unaware of it.

In observance of the World Hypertension Day on Thursday, ICDDR,B in league with the Non Communicable Diseases Control Programme of Directorate General of Health Services organised the seminar - 'Hypertension! The Silent Killer! Reaching the Unreached'- at Sasakawa Auditorium of ICDDR,B.

The seminar participants said stroke and heart attack are the two major causes of deaths from NCD in Bangladesh and uncontrolled hypertension is the major risk for the both. Early detection of hypertension and changing lifestyle can tackle hypertension without taking medicines.

Tazeen H Jafar of DUKE-NUS Medical School of Singapore said, ‘Health systems have been conventionally focused on infectious diseases and have neglected chronic diseases, which have become very, very important.’

Abdul Alim, deputy programme manager, NCDC Programme, DGHS presented the overview of the government's programme on NCD. He highlighted NCDC Operational Plan in Health, Nutrition, and Population Program, referral services at the primary level and the guidelines of the government.

Sohel Reza Choudhury of National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, SM Mustafa Zaman, secretary general, Association of Physicians of Bangladesh, and several others presented research findings in the scientific session.

It was followed by an open discussion session moderated by AHM Enayet Hussain, additional director general of planning and development of DGHS where Nur Mohammad, line director, NCDC Programme, Afzalur Rahman, director, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, MA Jalil Chowdhury, secretary general, Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons and national professor Abdul Malik, founder and president, National heart Foundation attended.

Representatives from different stakeholders also participated in the event and attended health check-up and blood pressure measurement session on the occasion.